Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division has introduced the Autonomous Metrology Suite, a new software solution built on its cloud-based Nexus platform. Designed to redefine quality control across global manufacturing industries, the suite eliminates the need for coding in coordinate measuring machine (CMM) workflows—helping manufacturers accelerate vital R&D and production processes amid a growing shortage of skilled metrologists.
Manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace, and general engineering sectors are under growing pressure: shorter product lifecycles and constant design updates are driving the demand for more precise measurements. However, a shortage of skilled CMM programmers and fragmented, underutilized quality data are slowing down new-part introductions and making it hard to consistently achieve high-quality results across shifts.
Hexagon’s Autonomous Metrology Suite directly addresses these challenges. It creates a digital twin for each connected CMM that stays perfectly in sync with its physical counterpart, ensuring the right inspection program reaches the correct machine—minimizing the risk of human error. All quality, utilisation, and environmental data is streamed to a central cloud dashboard, enabling a continuous digital thread that empowers real-time, data-driven decisions on the shop floor.
All applications in the suite share a consistent modern and intuitive web interface that guides both new and expert users through the process, helping to democratise the creation of CMM programmes and reduce the level of skills required to interact with the solution. Depending on complexity, programming could be reduced from days to hours, following which the programme deployment to one or more CMMs, execution and reporting can be fully automated from a single interface.
These efficiency gains are driven by a set of tightly integrated applications built on Hexagon’s Nexus platform, automating and streamlining the entire metrology workflow. Metrology Mentor guarantees consistent inspection methods from plant to plant, eliminating a risk that two operators measure the same part in different ways. The suite enables Hexagon’s existing Global S, Tigo and MAESTRO CMMs to join the same digital workflow, meaning existing investments continue to pay dividends, with support planned for 3rd party hardware.
- The Metrology Mentor app automatically generates ISO- and ASME-compliant inspection programmes directly from CAD. By standardising measurement techniques through the Metrology Mentor application, the platform ensures that regardless of operator skill level, measurement programmes consistently adhere to geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) standards.
- Metrology Reporting consolidates data from Hexagon and third-party dimensional metrology and tomography systems, providing live batch quality analytics, statistical insight and full part histories with an accessible and high productivity web-based user interface.
- Finally, Metrology Asset Manager keeps watch over calibration status, machine operation and errors and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity and vibration, ensuring machines stay healthy and measurements remain trustworthy. It also delivers utilisation data to help users understand and improve overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
Since every application in the suite shares the same intuitive interface, users can easily drag and drop files, follow guided prompts, and see real-time updates across the entire system. The intuitive design of the shared user interface means that if users learn how to use one app, they can more easily learn how to use the whole suite.
Gary Peacock, General Manager Metrology Software at Hexagon, said: “Autonomous Metrology Suite addresses skills shortages by revolutionising measurement programming with a no-code environment and user experiences that dramatically reduce operator training time.
“With more pressure on experienced metrologists, Autonomous Metrology Suite amplifies their efforts by automating processes from programming to multiple CMM execution and reporting, removing quality control bottlenecks with consistent measurements,” Mr Peacock added.
Paragon Medical, an early adopter of the technology, has been instrumental in validating the suite’s capabilities. The manufacturer started its continuous improvement journey addressing OEE visibility with Metrology Asset Manager, democratised quality data with Metrology Reporting, and is now rolling out a standardised inspection processes while accelerating new staff onboarding with Metrology Mentor.
Jeff Livingston, Senior Quality Manager, Paragon Medical, said, “Like many manufacturers, we’re under growing pressure to speed up production while managing scattered data and a shortage of skilled CMM programmers. Manual monitoring across our 17 CMMs created bottlenecks, inconsistent measurement strategies and operator training challenges. Now, with the Autonomous Metrology Suite tying it all together through a single intuitive interface, we see a clear path to unified quality and manufacturing. What used to take hours or days is done in minutes, and the impact is amplified across throughput, training and team communication.”
The Autonomous Metrology Suite is now available to pilot customers starting June, with full commercial release planned later this year. The offering includes on-premise software to synchronise inspection programs, CMM digital twins, and reports with Nexus—enabling execution of CMM programs without relying solely on traditional metrology software like PC-DMIS. Upcoming enhancements will further streamline how manufacturers capture, analyse, and apply metrology data by leveraging the Nexus platform’s open architecture, automation features, and collaborative tools.
Manufacturers looking to transform their quality control workflows are encouraged to reach out to their local Hexagon representative for more details.
COMMENTS